What Is Draghi’s “Big Bertha”?

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is not shy with colorful language. At his last press conference two weeks ago, he blasted certain bank CEOs who suggested staying away from the ECB’s 3-year loan was a question of “manhood” and “virility.”

Memorable ‘Draghi metaphors’ are now on the rise. In an interview with the German press Thursday, Mr. Draghi said the impact of the ECB’s three-year loan allocated in late December was underestimated at first “because many people expected the ECB to expand its government bond purchases, the famous ‘bazooka.’

“Maybe I should have called the tender ‘Big Bertha’ when I announced it, then everyone would have listened.”

Hold on. Let’s clarify the martial language here: a bazooka is a weapon that a soldier carries on his shoulder to shoot at tanks.

On the other hand, a Big Bertha is a nickname generally applied to a big howitzer used by the German army in the First World War.

But, the Big Bertha is also a golf club introduced in 1991 by the Callaway Golf company. Mr. Draghi is known to be an avid golfer so that club may have given grounds for the metaphor.

What does he mean really? Is the Big Bertha loan aggressively firing money into the air intercepting and eliminating the forces of gloom and doom out of the economy?

What would one then call the ECB’s eligible collateral that is required to get these “big bertha” loans? The ECB’s protective helmet and armor Mr. Draghi wears while firing the Big Bertha (aspiring cartoonists, here’s your chance). Some would say the armor has now been dented more than a bit by recent looser collateral rules.

Being a man of peace and not of war, I prefer to think that Mr. Draghi was in fact imagining standing on the golf course with his Big Bertha driver, knowing that even if he is standing over 500 yards from the hole, he could still hit the green in two strokes, thanks to his big club.

Maybe after these big hits — the three-year operations, I mean — Mr. Draghi, who is also a basketball fan, will speak of it as a “slam dunk.”

Or he can say that we’re in the 8th inning of the crisis resolution, a baseball metaphor. For those of you wondering, a regulation baseball game has nine innings.